


impulse

by kyu (dazaicat)



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M, Other, Unrequited Love, lowkey bondage, lowkey humiliation, lowkey possessiveness, really vague magically-assisted borking, there's borking but id literally die before i write actual honest-to-god sex so, vague magical bsdm fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 01:37:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15450498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazaicat/pseuds/kyu
Summary: q: what's the most impulsive thing that asra has ever done?a: julian.





	impulse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kattenprinsen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattenprinsen/gifts).



> inspired by [this ask](http://thearcanagame.tumblr.com/post/165384125579/whats-the-most-impulsive-thing-that-asra-has-ever), and also that "find out more abt their relationship" premium scene that made me die a thousand times and brought me back to life just to kill me again.
> 
> also blease understand that i have no idea how to write or do anything at all, and as such, the fic starts literally in the middle of a setting, halfway into their dialogue. if one day i become a competent writer by miracle, i will come back and write a proper intro. that said, enjoy!
> 
> (do i. tag it as m/m. when asra isn't strictly m. help me)

Asra’s lips curl into a smile, and Julian’s heart jumps.

“No, I don’t think so,” he breathes, forcing a whine past Julian’s teeth. “Why, Ilya, we so rarely spend time together.”

The teasing on Asra’s tone is heavy and cloying, like honey pouring itself down Julian’s throat. Sometimes, he thinks, there is something very cruel about how Asra likes to tease. He _knows_ they rarely spend time together because anytime Julian seeks Asra out, Asra has some kind of excuse ready; he knows that anything he gets from Asra comes entirely from Asra’s insatiable curiosity rather than any kind of attachment. He knows this. Asra doesn’t need to rub it in.

Then Asra’s nails are scraping down Julian’s scalp, lines soothing if they weren’t so sharp, and Julian can’t fault Asra for anything at all. He lets Asra wind his fingers through the burnt-orange locks and tug; he lets Asra tip his head back, lets Asra’s molten gaze meet his own, because that’s what Asra wants.

Asra stares for a long moment, hand in Julian’s hair unyielding. His expression is inscrutable as always, reminding Julian of those crystal balls he tried so desperately to glean meaning from; flickers of maybe-hunger, maybe-satifaction, swimming so deep in amusement he can barely make them out. Asra looks at Julian like Julian is his property, with none of the reverence he saves for the arcana or the familiarity he saves for his familiar; that hurts, somewhere deep inside, somewhere underneath the heady daze that the sheer level of _possessiveness_ in Asra’s gaze commands.

Julian lets him look. Lets Asra tug his head further back, forcing his neck at an uncomfortable angle just to prove that Asra _can._ Lets Asra lean over him, never getting too close, never giving him anything, but taking everything Julian has to offer. Lets himself shiver at the closeness where Asra can feel it, keeps his eyes open even though he can’t see the pleased twist to Asra’s lips from the angle. He waits.

Eventually, Asra steps back. There is an air of disappointment to the movement that Julian feels acutely, and that’s another little stab somewhere it hurts hurts _hurts;_ somewhere he thinks only Asra can reach, without trying.

“You know I can’t give you what you want, Ilya.” Like it’s somehow _Ilya’s_ fault.

“I know,” Julian says. _Stop calling me that if you don’t mean it,_ he doesn’t say. His throat feels too dry.

“Then why do you always—” Asra cuts himself off, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated. Julian realizes he still can’t see him, that his chin is still held up high, open and vulnerable. _Why what?_ he wants to ask. _Why do I keep running to you any chance I get? You know me, Asra, ever the pathetic lovestruck fool, you shouldn’t be surprised, really—_

Asra seems to read his mind like always, because he continues.

“Always _tempt me like this,”_ he says in a tone caught halfway between a growl and a hiss, and if Julian wasn’t already kneeling he thinks that tone alone could level him.

He doesn’t dare reply.

“Get up.”

He almost trips with how fast his limbs uncurl at Asra’s command. His hands shake; he can feel his heart beating in his throat, rabbit-fast, rabbit-lured-in-by-fox fast. He doesn’t know where to look, where to go, what to feel—all he knows is that he wants whatever Asra wants. If only he knew what that was.

“Come here.”

The words hook themselves between his ribcage and jerk; he’s stumbling towards Asra before he even knows it.

“ _Ilya.”_

Asra’s voice is soft, so soft on that last word, not even a command, that Julian can’t help but look. Asra’s lips are pressed together into a tight line, stern and somehow sad. Julian is helpless to that expression.

“What do you want from me?” He manages to say.

Asra sighs.

“I want—” he cuts himself off, and stares somewhere in the vicinity of Julian’s cheek. “I wish I could give you what you need.”

 _You don’t,_ Julian’s immediate retort is.

“Please,” his mouth says instead, and Asra looks up in surprise.

He stares, quiet, as Asra’s eyes roam his face.

“You have no idea—” again, Asra seems to bite back something vitally important. Julian would give anything, anything to know what he meant to say right then, anything—

“Anything,” he breathes into the air between them, and Asra’s eyes grow dark.

“Right.” Asra’s voice is a hush when he sways into Julian’s space as if transfixed, when he brings a hand up to dig his thumb into Julian’s cheekbone. “Right.”

“Show me,” is the last thing Asra says before he drags Julian in and pries his jaw open. It’s not a kiss; it’s Asra’s teeth on the tender skin right above his lip and Asra’s tongue flicking over the roof of his mouth and Asra’s thumb keeping his mouth held open, hooked between his side teeth.

When Asra pulls back just to crowd back in closer than before, Julian already knows that his lips will be as raw as the rest of him when Asra is done. With the way Asra has his jaw held open, it’s already going to ache; he can’t swallow, and the drool threatening to overflow only adds to the shame and humiliation. He likes it; hates and loves that he likes it in equal measure, hates the sound in his throat that has nowhere to go when Asra licks in deeper all devious and unrelenting.

Asra, the bastard, pulls back at the exact moment it takes to let that sound echo between them.

Julian waits for the mockery to come. Waits for the smirk to tug at Asra’s lips. Neither comes. Asra’s face is strangely blank, eyes fixed on his hand in Julian’s mouth and on Julian’s throat when he tries to swallow on reflex.

Asra’s tongue snakes out to trace his lips, seemingly unaware of the movement. Julian mirrors it unconsciously. His tongue brushes against Asra’s thumb with the attempt. He can still taste Asra; heavy salt, electric magic, bitter tea.

Asra pulls his finger out. It glides out so easy and slick there’s something almost perverse in the motion, something that makes Julian’s cheeks burn even hotter. When Asra traces his now-wet thumb across Julian’s lips, back-and-forth, across his cheek, down his neck, down to his collarbone, Julian lets him.

When Asra digs his thumb, hard, into the pulse point on Julian’s neck, Julian lets him.

“You,” Asra begins and then trails off again. His eyes are void, like the depths of a crystal ball that has been shaken too hard, like something Julian never had a chance of understanding.

Then the hand slides itself around Julian’s neck, five hard points digging into pale skin, and Asra drags him in for a proper kiss, finally, _finally,_ and it’s so good Julian could cry.

His shaking hands come up on reflex to steady himself—but the only solid thing around is Asra, who catches his wrist immediately before he can touch. Julian stumbles back; Asra follows, pushes harder, licks in deeper. Asra tugs on his wrist and pushes at his neck and suddenly the world tilts. Julian goes willingly; doesn’t even question the fall, doesn’t try to catch himself.

It’s small mercies that he lands on the relatively soft surface of Asra’s bed, really. He doesn’t think he’d mind if he ended up on the floor. Not as long as Asra is hovering over him with that expression on his face. Not as long as it’s Asra doing the pushing.

Not as long as Asra’s hair sticks up like that, platinum blonde curls frizzed up by the hot damp air into spikes, cheeks glowing in the probably-magic ambient light. He looks divine. Julian can understand why some people worship.

“Stop looking at me like that, Ilya,” Asra groans. He’s beautiful like this too, equal parts frustrated and longing; Julian never stood a chance, really.

“Make me,” he says in a voice too quiet and raspy and raw, trying for bravado and finding his lips still too numb to properly smirk.

He doesn’t know what he expected as a response; maybe Asra engulfing him whole, maybe another hand on his throat. Surely not Asra drawing back to scan his face with a too-serious gaze. Definitely not a smile.

“Yes, I think I will,” Asra says, and Julian’s heart skips several beats.

He doesn’t move for several seconds, enough for Julian to become aware of the haphazard way his limbs are strewn across the bed and the uncomfortable feeling of his shirt sticking to his chest. Asra looks customarily unruffled—even though Julian can see the gauze of his top shimmer in the light, Asra makes no move to take it off.

“Do it,” Asra says, once again displaying uncanny ability to pinpoint where Julian’s attention is. Julian reaches up, just to be stopped by an impatient click of the tongue. “Yours, Ilya. I want to see all of you.”

His cheeks burn. His hair sticks to his forehead; he must make quite a picture. The room is hot, too hot, even as his fingers slip over the buttons and the cool air spills across his chest. Asra makes no move to help.

It’s only when Julian’s bare shoulderblades are pressed into Asra’s bedsheets that he moves. He traces across Julian’s chest; fingertips hot, or maybe cold, definitely magical. They sweep across in curves that Julian suspects might be runes. When they slide up to Julian’s throat, he feels more than sees the mark there flare to life; he sees it reflect in Asra’s eyes, sees Asra’s lips part, and sees an answering light bloom across Asra’s chest.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Asra says. It’s oddly strangled. Julian reaches up, drawn by that light, and Asra _lets_ him; lets Julian rest his palm against his chest and does nothing besides sliding his eyes closed. “It doesn’t _mean_ anything,” Asra repeats.

He doesn’t sound very convinced. Julian isn’t too convinced, either.

“It’s a curse to you, isn’t it?” Asra whispers into the air between them. He looks pained, almost uncertain, and it hurts Julian to see.

He closes his eyes and lets his throat work.

“Yes.” He can’t lie. Not to Asra. Not to someone who knows him inside and out.

Asra doesn’t respond. Then soft lips brush across the still-glowing mark on his throat, a warm tongue flicking across the intricate lines. It’s so gentle, so tender, that Julian doesn’t even dare move for fear of ending the moment; he feels so lost, so untethered, and utterly unsure of how to proceed. “Asra,” he says.

Asra hums.

He’s listening, at least, Julian thinks. He tries again. “—Let me?”

Asra blinks as if he didn’t even notice Julian’s hand on his chest, and pulls back.

“No.”

It takes Asra’s gentle grip on his wrist to pull his hand away; immediately, he misses the warmth against his palm. Asra curls his hand into a first and pushes it firmly into the mattress by Julian’s head. Julian turns to see it, to witness where Asra’s fingers are still curled over his own, paler ones. This lets Asra tip his head down to Julian’s ear.

“Tell me what you want, Ilya. Just this once—” shivers, down Julian’s spine and skittering across his scalp, “—if you could have it _just this once.”_

“Anything,” Julian echoes his words from earlier. Asra’s fingertips dig into his ribs, thighs bracketing Julian’s sides. He probably should have more shame; but when did he ever have shame, when it came to Asra?

“Then I can leave.” A challenge, again, _why_ does Asra always test him like this?

 _Please don’t_ is the most natural answer. He knows Asra can read it between every exhalation, coursing through Julian’s blood. He won’t give Asra the satisfaction of hearing it said out loud. He keeps quiet.

It’s only when Asra pulls his hand back, fingers sliding over Julian’s wrist, that he turns to face him in a panic.

“Come on, Ilya,” Asra croons. “Tell me.”

“How?” The sound is croak-adjacent, hurried.

“I don’t know. You could try begging.” A smile, equal parts devious and amused. “Don’t you like that?”

He thought he couldn’t flush any harder; and yet.

“ _Please_.”

“Please what?”

“Please…touch me.”

“No.”

It’s like walking into a trap, Asra’s amusement dripping from his tone like honey from the tines of a fork. “No?”

“No. But you can do it yourself.”

The idea is molten shame, a fuse lit. “Please don’t make me.”

“Why not?—” And here Julian was, thinking there was a limit to Asra’s cruelty—“Are you telling me you’ve never done it before, thinking of me?”

That hurts, the way Asra implies that so easily _hurts_ like nothing he’s said so far. It hurts, most of all, because it’s _true,_ and he and Asra both know it the longer Julian’s silence drags on.

“You could’ve told me, Ilya,” Asra says, as if that was _ever_ an option. Julian doesn’t grace that with a response.

Asra lowers himself further into the cradle of Julian’s hips. “I could have _done_ something about it.” He punctuates that with a slow grind that makes Julian’s hands clench in the sheets and his breath catch. _Lies, lies,_ all _lies,_ he tells himself. There is no way any part of what Asra is saying is true. More trickery; more ways to make a fool of Julian, a mockery out of Julian’s helpless devotion. More ways to see Julian bleed.

 _Why are you doing this,_ he wants to ask. _What do you get out of watching me be pathetic and desperate for you._

“There’s something about you, Ilya,” Asra muses as if in reply. “I can’t put my finger on it.” _Put more than a finger on it, then,_ Julian thinks, and Asra cracks a smile in response. _In it, even,_ he thinks as defiantly as he can. He tries to stare Asra down; Asra’s smile slowly ebbs away, replaced by that ravenous-fixated look from earlier.

“I’m not going to fuck you.” _Didn’t expect you to._ _“_ Did you think this was where this was going?” _Hoped, maybe._ “You always wanted too much from me, Ilya.”

“I’ll do it,” Julian says, just to make him _stop._

“Oh?”

“You told me to show you. I’ll do it.”

Asra is quiet for a long moment. Then he pulls back, and Julian didn’t realize he was so _close_ until suddenly the looming shadow is gone and the warm orange light creeps back in— “Alright.”

One hand is still pinned to the bed by Asra’s, so he brings his right up to his collar and pretends his fingers are steady where they touch his own skin.

“Sometimes…” Asra doesn’t interrupt, so Julian watches his face carefully and goes on. “…sometimes I wish you’d do this.” He trails the hand down to his chest, watching Asra’s eyes flick between the motion and his eyes, back and again. Asra’s lips part.

“And?”

“…And this.” He skates the hand further down, across his ribs, far gentler than anything Asra has done so far in any sense. His own touch and Asra’s rapt attention makes his muscles jump, all involuntary shudders and hyper-sensitivity. Asra swallows.

“Keep going.”

He pulls the shirt gently out from where it’s still tucked into his slacks, and traces his own hipbone, just inches from where Asra’s thigh is radiating heat. He could name each muscle along the way, each bone, each _cell_ currently in contact with Asra’s body, host a funeral for every part of himself that will no doubt perish to the fire. He keeps going.

Asra doesn’t move back when he slips his hand between them.

“You’d never—”

“I didn’t say that.” Asra’s declaration comes as a surprise enough to halt Julian in his tracks. “I never said I wouldn’t, Ilya.”

“You implied it. With every breath you took, Asra, you’ve implied you’ll _never want me—”_

Asra cuts him off with a kiss, hard, desperate, and Julian swallows down years of bitterness to make room for Asra’s overwhelming presence. He waits for Asra to pull back again to speak.

Breathless, Asra beats him to the punch. “You talk too much.”

“And you talk too _little_ , if you don’t want this then why are you—”

“Why indeed,” Asra laughs, and it has none of the humor it usually does. “But you want me.”

There’s no arguing that. “Always.”

“Then why argue?”

It’s reasonable on the surface, and makes something hot and sharp and ugly rise to the back of Julian’s throat—he didn’t think it was possible to feel even _hotter—_ “Maybe I don’t want it _like this_ , have you considered that?”

“How do you want it, then?”

It’s so tiring, having Asra be cruel and earnest in turns, with no right answer in sight.

“I want you to want me. I want a lot of impossible things.”

“I want you right now. Is that not enough?”

 _No part of you will ever be enough for me,_ something in Julian snaps back, even as a separate part of him chants _anything, anything, anything you can give._

“This was a terrible idea,” Asra slowly begins, when Julian’s silence holds for a few beats too long. His tone is bleeding down into regret like he’s realizing something he’s afraid to realize. “I—I can leave. I’m going to leave. I’m sorry, Ilya. I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“Please don’t,” Julian says, the same words he could not say earlier. “Don’t leave.”

“Ilya—”

“—You asked me what I’d want if it was just this once, right?” Julian is tired, so tired, of trying to reason or beg or plead for anything. He tips his head back, eyes closed, and waits for the reply.

Asra nods, slow, and Julian feels the movement even without seeing it.

“I want you to do whatever you want with me.”

He knows it’s a gamble; he knows that Asra will just as soon declare he wants nothing to do with him, and leave anyway.

Instead, he feels gentle hands around his wrists guiding them upwards over his head. He keeps his eyes closed; tries to breathe deep, slow, to calm the jump in his pulse. He is a doctor, a really good one; he should know every response of his body, voluntary or not, but his thoughts skitter away like leaves in a hurricane when faced with the force of nature that is Asra. His medical studies never covered the element of magic, either. He breathes.

As soon as his wrists touch the mattress right above his head, he feels something _glow_ and twine itself around his fingers and between his wristbones and halfway up his forearms.

“What—”

“Be quiet.” Asra’s voice is quiet but firm, and Julian falls silent instantly.

Asra trails his hands across Julian’s face, leaving hot-cold trails in their wake. They pause at the hollows of his cheekbones; cup the side of his face for just a second, then slide down around his throat. This time, Julian can feel the trails take form, twining around his neck to the beat of a foreign pulse and constricting until he can’t feel where his skin ends and the glow begins. He finds he can still breathe; but the light has a _pulse,_ something distinctly _other_ than his own, and the very thought of it being _Asra’s_ makes him lightheaded. It calls to his mark. He doesn’t recall it ever fading.

Asra hums, pleased, and Julian’s breath grows shallower in his lungs.

The fingers make their way down his chest, across his ribcage, dipping down to his sides and leaving serpentine glowing trails that seem to come alive instantly. That strange-cool of magic, juxtaposed with the familiar-organic feel of a pulse against his skin, keeps him just on the edge of fully present and tethered in the reality that is Asra straddling him, Asra _doing_ this to him.

He jerks when he suddenly feels two cool fingertips againt his cheek.

“Ilya. _Ilya.”_

“Mm?”

“Do you want me to keep going?”

 _Yes,_ Julian responds instinctively. Then he realizes that Asra might not, actually, be a mind reader, and says it out loud after clearing his throat. “Uh. Yes. Please.”

He flexes his wrists absentmindedly, but the binds only give a fraction before tightening in warning. He’s _helpless,_ he realizes. Entirely at Asra’s mercy. _Asra’s._

A singularly intoxicating thought. He thinks he whines, or maybe not, because he doesn’t dare trust his own ears at that point; definitely not when Asra seems to hear it too, and whispers ‘ _Mine’._

He must be hallucinating. He must be hallucinating somehow. The warm possessiveness in Asra’s tone; the calm certainty, the sharp edge of desire. None of those are Asra-and-Julian things, and the possibility of the impossible is likely the most cruel thing Asra has made him consider yet.

Asra, in his casually-cruel style, keeps talking.

“Isn’t that true, Ilya? Tell me.” The light binds flex around Julian’s ribcage, and then relax again. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“ _Yours_ ,” is all that Julian can say to that.

Asra doesn’t reply, but he does hook his fingers into Julian’s slacks and scoot backwards. The magic follows him.

The first tendrils of slick-cold, strangely-organic magic right where he is aching for it make his back curl. For a second, all he can think of is _light;_ and then _pleasure,_ somehow mingled with _pain,_ intertwined with _hot_ and _freezing_ and _too much_ and _oh god please more more_ **more.** He thinks, in that moment, that he can feel _everything;_ Asra’s breath and Asra’s pulse and the flutter of Asra’s eyelashes and each ebb of the thing between them. The tendrils twine down his thighs, around his knees, unassisted— probably —by Asra, wrapping around his ankles and carrying that same beat, same magic, down to every cell of his body he can feel and probably some he can’t.

He thinks he cries out, at some point. The pleasure is relentless; he doesn’t know _how,_ or _why,_ or _when,_ but everything feels _good,_ and everything is _Asra_ and he feels so _complete_ he might just cry.

He doesn’t even notice he’s actually started crying until the white recedes from the edges of his vision a little and the sensation of gentle hands on his cheeks filters back in. He can’t tell if the tears they’re wiping away are hot or cold, can hardly even parse if they’re _wet;_ his mind is too occupied with the _gentle,_ and _tender,_ and _loving-almost._

“I’m not done yet,” Asra says, and all Julian can reply with is a sob.

“Ilya,” Asra pauses, and waits, and that is probably the most torturous thing of all.

“ _Please,”_ Julian grits out. “ _Yes.”_

He doesn’t know if Asra smiles or smirks or frowns at that, but it feels like warm honey dripping across his skin.

The magic flares to life again, and the world filters out into _feeling_ and _emotion_ and _so much want he could possibly drown in it and never surface ever again._ It bleeds into _lavender and black tea;_ into _herbs and crystals and paper humming with magic_ and _scales_ and _safety_ and _tender-reluctant-affection._

It’s not love; it’s so far from love that the difference aches like an open wound behind his ribs, but it feels a lot like looking into a crystal ball and finally _seeing_ something, even if it’s not something he wanted to see, necessarily, and it’s _everything._

He loses track of time, eventually. Loses track of how many times he’s surfaced again, to Asra’s gentle hungry patience, loses track of how many times he’s begged Asra to do it _again_ and _again._

He loses _himself,_ quite simply; and on that path, finds something new entirely.

 

* * *

Julian comes to a sensation of _soft_ and _warm._

 

The second sensation comes when he pulls a hand to his face, realizing with a start that it’s unbound and entirely pain-free. He’d think that after what Asra put him through, his shoulders would be sore at the very least; but apart from a thin silver line winding itself around his arm, there is no trace of the night— or maybe day— before, sensation or otherwise.

A quick touch to his neck proves the same to be the case there too; no magic, dormant or otherwise, and no sign of the mark flaring to life. No lingering soreness in his ribs, not even _exhaustion,_ nothing, and for a moment he almost panics when faced with such a blatant lack of evidence that anything even _happened_ outside of his wildest dreams.

Then a nose pokes out from underneath the covers, a tongue flickering back and forth, and Julian lets out a breath.

“…Faust.”

“I told her to keep an eye on you,” comes from the doorway, and Julian jerks to find Asra squinting against the sunlight, barefoot. Faust hisses assent and tries to curl around Julian’s shoulders, which he in turn tries to gently prevent.

“How are you feeling?” Asra’s tone is strangely light for their given context, so Julian goes with brutal honesty.

“I thought you wouldn’t be here.”

Asra doesn’t reply for a few beats, and then sighs. “So did I.”

“Why, then—?”

The reply is careful, guarded in a way Asra rarely lets people see he’s being. “I thought—maybe—leaving you to wake up alone wouldn’t be—” Asra trails off, and shakes his head. “Don’t think anything of it. Are you hungry? I can make some food—”

“I…Mm.”

He gets a raise of a pale eyebrow for the non-answer. “Mm?”

“Maybe,” Julian allows. “We still have to talk about this.”

A second passes. Then two. Then, “Maybe. Maybe we do.”

 

 

**fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ **[t.](http://dazaicat.tk)** ]  
> come literally deck me thru my dms


End file.
